September 19, 2008

Reported by the Associated Press

DIAMONDCreative called a press conference today in the hallway outside their Miracle Miles headquarters where Client Liaison Janelle Fisher announced that she is addicted to frozen yogurt and has suffered this addiction for the last ten years.

Fisher, holding a cup of Pinkberry Plain, size Extra Large, was visibly emotional as she made her statement. She announced her plans to attend Out Patient Yogurt Therapy, offered at the Pinkberry location in Beverly Hills in the alley on Thursday nights from 6:15-6:25pm, and credits the support of her family and coworkers in coming to the realization that her love of frozen yogurt had slowly become debilitating.

Fisher, in happier days, with her own toppings creation. “Chocolate chips, cocoanut and strawberries are the ultimate topping trio.”

“You know, you start out, and you just want a delicious, subtlety-flavored frozen yogurt with a selection of healthy toppings,” Fisher said. She said at first, her habit was manageable. A frozen yogurt after dinner and she was fine.

Then came the Pinkberry that opened close to her home. And the Red Mango that soon appeared across the street. And the Strawberry Kiwi Fusion that opened at the base of her building in early June. Fisher soon found herself purchasing, at minimum, four frozen yogurt treats a day. She frequented different locations to keep suspicion of her addiction at bay, often driving as far as Century City.

Soon, she was skipping meetings and conference calls when the cravings kicked in, often claiming to “need the ladies room” when really she was getting in the car for a Large Plain with Mango and Walnuts.

And then, bottom came. Fisher found herself at a stripmall TCBY in Van Nuys at 3am on a Tuesday, with no recollection of how she’d got there. Paramedics arrived at the scene to find her clutching a cup of chocolate-vanilla swirl and close to hypothermia. Fisher recalls it as the darkest night of her young life.

Her need for what she refers to as her “cold tasty treat” had left her with an average body temperature of 76 degrees. Doctors demanded she give up the habit. Her family and DIAMONDCreative coworkers vowed their support, even going so far as to obliterate all cold dairy from the office.

In closing, Fisher finished a statement with a plea to her fellow fro-yo lovers. “If you think you might have a problem, don’t wait. Seek help immediately. And if you must have one, please always make sure you wear a sweater while you eat. Thank you.”

TV shows—such as The Sopranos—are more riveting than most of the overrated offerings found at the multiplex. Photo illustration by Jacques Del Conte.

In the 1960s (many of you weren’t around for that decade, but trust me—it was wild), one of the countercultural articles of faith was that you didn’t so much watch a movie as lean back and “let it wash over you.” It was still possible then to believe in the pore-cleansing powers of sensory overload and oceanic bliss, no matter how many Elvis Presley musicals gunked up the drive-ins. The movie screen was sacramental, the wide horizon on which Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, and David Lean played God. Compared with the puny portal of the television box, the movie screen bespoke a cool blank inscrutable mystique—a billboard-size tabula rasa ready to burst into tapestry. So much expectation hinged on that tingling moment in the theater when the lights dimmed and the curtains parted, revealing the screen staring back at us, virgin with possibility. “Let us pray,” Pauline Kael would sometimes mutter, not in a religious spirit (she was not a religious person) but in the hope that something wonderful was about to unveil, something that would make up for the lousy film the day before.

Today our prayers fly in different directions. We pray for the movie to finally get started after a face-blasting bombardment of ads and previews cranked up at full volume and, later, much later, after we’ve forgotten our reason for existence, pray for the film to finish already. Please, Mommy, make it stop. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was longer than Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, a callow affront to all that is holy. And as the film takes forever to burn off its budget, the fidgets in the audience flip their cell phones on to check for messages, gray lights going on and off like little refrigerator doors being opened and shut by obsessive-compulsives, or, worse, take an incoming call and start narrating what’s happening on-screen to the idiot at the other end. For me, the ideal time to go to the movies used to be the dead of the afternoon, when the empty seats outnumbered the lonely wayfarers. Now the ideal time to go to the movies is almost never. With home theaters going big, wide, and hi-def with digital cable, plasma screens, and sound systems, the aesthetic gap between multiplexing and couch-potatoing has never been narrower, but that doesn’t apply to me, since I don’t happen to have a wall-size plasma screen that hypnotizes. It’s content that provides the killer edge, that makes the choice between what’s at the movies and what’s on TV nearly no contest. Strip away the glitter and grandiosity and the truth is that most of what’s on the movie screen runs a ragged second to what’s available on television at a fraction of the aggravation.

TV promises so much less, yet gives so much more.

This is one of those articles that I read where I did a lot of head bobbing, “Yes, EXACTLY”, and fist pumping. It was embarrassing for all those on the plane with me. Finish the article here.

In case you’re wondering what it would like if Janelle, Courtney and I were ever in the same room, laughing about files- “Look at this paper! We’re having SUCH a good time.”

Morgan on the new iTunes. Ignore his comment about my music library.